4: Serving Communities

Safeguard lives, property and assets, advance scientific knowledge, and improve the quality of life for communities we serve.

Other Information:

The Department is responsible for protecting lives, resources, and property; providing scientific information to reduce risks from earthquakes, landslides, and volcanic eruptions, and fulfilling the Nation's trust and other special responsibilities to American Indians, Native Alaskans, and residents of Island Communities. Our mission responsibilities include assisting 561 American Indian tribes, with a service population of nearly 1.6 million American Indians and Alaska Natives. We manage 56 million acres of Indian trust land and $3.3 billion of financial trust assets held in approximately 1,450 trust accounts for about 300 Tribes and about 323,000 open accounts for individual Indians. We also provide elementary and secondary education to nearly 48,000 Native American students and protect millions of cultural and historic resources on Federal and Indian lands. We have administrative responsibility for coordinating Federal policy with respect to the territories of American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. We also oversee Federal programs and funding in the freely associated states of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. To assist the islands in developing more efficient and effective government, we provide financial and technical assistance and promote appropriate Federal policies.

Objective(s):

1: Protection of Life, Resources, and Property

2: Natural Hazard Understanding, Prediction, and Monitoring

3: Indian Fiduciary Trust

4: Tribes and Alaska Natives

5: Insular Area Economic Self-Sufficiency

Content